There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

(Chapter 7 and beyond)

Re: There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

Postby Anonymous81 » Wed Jun 24, 2015 11:32 pm

You can place me in the "blindly optimistic to the point of naivete" camp if you do desire, but in reality it's more like:

Choosing to ignore things I can't change or control in favor of focusing on what I can, and what I can focus on is morale and hope and keeping people's attitudes such that they have the energy and drive to get the word out. Because without that, that effort DOES slow I believe. I've seen it before.

So, does it help? Maybe, maybe not. But since it's all I can contribute once I've maxed out my ability to contribute money, I'd rather do something than nothing. And it makes me feel good too, and that's never a bad thing in my view. So, everyone else can do what they want but... full speed ahead in the giddy hope-mobile for me! :D
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Re: There's No Reason For Negativity

Postby drunkensailor » Thu Jun 25, 2015 4:50 am

killthesagabeforeitkillsu wrote: We need to stop freaking out, even if we get... Lets say $5M. They can still open the paypal option post KS for a year and gather those $10M.

the thing is. will they even understand this? their campaign and ks page is ran so terribly I don't have any confidence in them making the right decisions in this.

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Re: There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

Postby ritsuka666 » Thu Jun 25, 2015 10:02 am

I am affraid we will not even reach 5M in t he final stage of Kickstart :(
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Re: There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

Postby Sonoshee » Thu Jun 25, 2015 10:05 am

ritsuka666 wrote: I am affraid we will only reach 4M in t he final stage of Kickstart :(


Nah, we'll hit between 5-6 million.

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Re: There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

Postby Reprise » Thu Jun 25, 2015 11:02 am

Is it me or are we doing much better with the funding today? :)
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Re: There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

Postby mjq jazz bar » Thu Jun 25, 2015 11:10 am

Seems that way to me.
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Re: There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

Postby FourWuDu1026 » Thu Jun 25, 2015 11:34 am

Reprise wrote: Is it me or are we doing much better with the funding today? :)


Hopefully. Yesterday we hit rock bottom with 21,000. :cry:
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Re: There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

Postby Anonymous81 » Thu Jun 25, 2015 2:02 pm

Well, we're definitely doing better than yesterday in theory so far. We've already raised more than half of what we did yesterday! We only need $8,000 to match or exceed it by the end of the day! That would be the first reversal of this downward trend so far. I believe we can do it. I also believe we WILL see a boost on July 3rd with #30onthe3rd, and then again near the end with a spike (though not as large as some imagine, I don't think.)

I also think it's a hopeful sign that with even a SLIGHT improvement to the KS marketing, things have picked up at least slightly. So if they kick things into high gear, let alone if a big breakthrough happens like Conan noticing those tweets (unlikely, but it's not IMPOSSIBLE,) we will get to around 7 million or so. That's my optimistic hope!

And if ALL the stars align right... we could STILL make 10 million. I will never give up until this is over. And then there's still PayPal. Give them some credit. They're not stupid. They know what PayPal is. They just haven't offered it as an option for some reason... yet. I have no doubt they will.
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Re: There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

Postby Henry Spencer » Thu Jun 25, 2015 2:02 pm

Suzuki's statement definitely seems to have helped the cause more.

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Re: There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

Postby sand4fish » Thu Jun 25, 2015 4:15 pm

Henry Spencer wrote: Suzuki's statement definitely seems to have helped the cause more.

I sure hope more of these will be coming soon, and more frequently.
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Re: There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

Postby Jackie Fhan » Thu Jun 25, 2015 4:18 pm

if only we could get that PS4 physical tier, sh1 and 2 hd stretch goal.
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Re: There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

Postby Anonymous81 » Thu Jun 25, 2015 9:59 pm

The pledge trolls have been out in force again today. But they couldn't stop us from at least losing considerably LESS than in previous days! We are reaching a floor I believe. Soon the plummet will end, and then it's only up from there! :)
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Re: There Is No Reason For Negativity

Postby reginalb » Fri Jun 26, 2015 1:59 pm

MiTT3NZ wrote: Alright then, if you want me to assume the mantle of Captain Obvious...


Man, I'm sorry, but that yellow makes this hard to read. Glad it's not like that in the editor. I thought I'd give my thoughts on these obvious ideas.

MiTT3NZ wrote:- YSNet should've spent more time on creating a short demo, not just Shenhua's poor attempt at a Blue Steel and jumping over a stream. Also, setting it in the cave would've been a bit more poignant. Give non-Shenmue fans a reason to pledge their hard-earned money, don't just expect them to.


I don't necessarily disagree, but you have no idea what kind of cost restraints they faced. With no money and little time, your expectation here (and elsewhere) might be a touch unrealistic. I could be wrong, but you should consider that everything they had might have been produced under very considerable constraints.

MiTT3NZ wrote:- To build on the previous point, the Kickstarter has done as well as it has solely based on the fact that it's Shenmue III. Finally. If Half-Life 3 or Timesplitters 3 also had to take to the site, then they also would've had non-fans donate money. It's an event, a milestone in gaming.


Agree 100%. Valve is a corporation with a couple billion in equity, and plenty of cash to spend. They would have done a great job, had a sweet demo, and some great marketing. Of course, they're a corporation with a couple billion in equity, so they wouldn't have to turn to kickstarter.

MiTT3NZ wrote:- Shenmue III was a big announcement, and it reached almost everyone who's into video games enough to know what E3 is. Awesome Japan should've realised this, and made plans to maintain momentum. The third will obviously lead to a temporary spike, and historical data points to the probability that it'll also see a big increase in the last few days, but they seem to be overly reliant on this.


You can't maintain momentum. Kickstarters spike, that's what they do. Pretty common with media. Jurrassic World's box office draw has been amazing, but its second weekend was like $100 million less than the first. The rabid fans contribute early, and there will be a spike right before it ends. You can't carry momentum all the way through. This, too, is an unrealistic expectation held by a fan. It would be awesome to see, but it's not a desire based on reality.


MiTT3NZ wrote:- One of the ways they could've done this was through a meta game. Don't expect fans to do the work for you. They should've approached it in a way that sees the fans constantly struggling to decide how much more they should pledge by adding a new tier or two every three to five days. Now, that may be the case of course, but their focus really needs to be on none-fans.


Pretty unrealistic, again, to expect non-fans to contribute significant amounts of money for a game they're going to have to wait 2.5 years for, when they don't even have a viable way to play the first 2. And don't say Emulators/buy a Dreamcast, how many non-fans are going to do that? If you think the number is large, I have a great bridge to sell you.

MiTT3NZ wrote:- It's great that they're trying to engage with the fans through polls, the Reddit AMA, etc., but why the hell are they not hammering out interviews with large media sites left, right and centre? They're already guaranteed our money, stop using us as a damn crutch, get out there and do some bleedin work!


They've been on Polygon, Engadget and some other pretty mainstream news sites. I guess they could do a bunch of different interviews that result in the same information being on those sites, but I don't think it would help very much. And I don't think they're going to get a "Daily Show" invite any time soon.

MiTT3NZ wrote:- I understand Suzuki setting the initial total at $2m. It's great that he said "no, I want them to have Shenmue III even if it's just a short game", but this should've been made clear from the very beginning. You had the stage at E3 ffs. Sony's stage. You had the biggest audience of next gen console gamers right in front of you. You should've bleedin said something!


Fair, and Yu seems to agree and has said as much. It was a mistake.

MiTT3NZ wrote:- The transparency issue. Almost everyone who knows of Shenmue knows about the whole fiasco behind the budget. This should've been addressed in the Kickstarter video. "We were given a huge budget to develop this game, as we had to create technology that didn't exist, we made it extremely detailed, individual footstep sounds, 3D scanners, meteorological data, it was split into two games, shit was more expensive back then, etc." Drive that point home, compare to how things have changed. Explain that Sony has advertising handled, so 100% of the Kickstarter funds make up the entirety of the game's actual production budget.


I never expected this to be an issue. Hindsight is 20/20, but they did say right from the start it was going to use the Unreal engine. Big time savings there. People just didn't realize that, and people love a good conspiracy story. With hindsight, they might have done something different here, but I bet you weren't thinking that on the first night, either.

MiTT3NZ wrote:- Simplified stretch goals. Why give the subtitles individual tiers? Just say "$3.5m gets all this", "$5m gets all that". The big leaps looks better value for money because of the sheer amount of content packed into each one.


Finally a point I actually agree with you on. Their stretch goals were dumb at first, and are only a little better now. That said, I still don't think it makes a difference. People were going to donate or they weren't. With good marketing now, there will be another spike at the end, and this will be the most well funded video game to date through Kickstarter. Hard to say they were bumbling fools that didn't know what they were doing if they make more money than anyone else had through the medium.

Back to the original point, I don't think it will/would impact money raised, but I was scratching my head at the goals, nonetheless.

MiTT3NZ wrote:- Replica jackets and mirrors should've definitely been in there from the start. Oh, you want both a Dragon and a Phoenix Mirror? Here's a new reward tier for that!


Well, they added them, so why be bitter now?

MiTT3NZ wrote:- For all the years Suzuki has had to design this game in his spare time (which apparently he has), he seems awfully unsure about a lot of things. This says to me that it's still in pre-production. He should've come into this with a very clear view on what he wants to include, and more importantly, how to implement it. Any other bells and whistles can be voted on by the backers, sure, but the core elements of the game? C'mon san.


I am not sure that he didn't, but he could communicate this a bit better, I agree. I mean, we're the kind-sorta investors, after all.

MiTT3NZ wrote:- Shenmue is an Eastern franchise. It's very Japanese. Whatever. That doesn't mean that you market it to a Western audience via an Eastern-based promotional company. The decision to do this is a massive oversight and terribly naïve.


Fair.

MiTT3NZ wrote:- Little to no presence. They appear on Kickstarter's most popular. Yu Suzuki and Shenmue III are on Twitter. The game has a website. These are all the places they're expected to be, and that's good, but why the hell haven't they branched out? Okay, sure, this one's a little tricky, but there should have been agreements made with both Sony and SEGA to throw in a little bit more of an extra presence. Facebook ads, banner ads, cross-promotion, etc. Right now it seems like only the fans, Corsi and Boyes are the only ones who give a shit.


ROI, the fans are the people that are going to pay. You could fork out TONS of money and lose it because if you aren't a fan, you aren't donating to the Kickstarter. Period. You're dreaming if you think otherwise

MiTT3NZ wrote:- The blatant potential of bad publicity... that was fulfilled. How the hell did they not see any of this coming? Kickstarter as a platform's been under a lot of scrutiny since before the campaign was launched. Why was nothing done to subvert this? Where were the contingency plans? The PR team's fucking useless.


Not sure they have a PR team, I doubt they could afford it. Or they wouldn't have to go to Kickstarter. And Sony wasn't about to drop a ton of money before they saw there was real potential here. So now they've stepped in, and there's cleanup being done. I still think you're benefiting from hindsight a touch here.

MiTT3NZ wrote:- Less of the corporate responses. Every reply to fan questions so far say nothing. Either answer properly or don't fucking answer at all.


Now you want it both ways. You want a PR team, but you don't want corporate responses. What do you think you get from a PR team?

Been a while since I've posted, but I'm back to combat what I see as EXTREMELY unrealistic expectations from what has been a loud, but TINY group for the last 14 years. Sega tried this shit, and it sold pretty well, but for a dying system. Then Microsoft put money in to it, and didn't get a good ROI. Now people think that it should be a AAA title 14 years later, with some demo made out of thin air, and a corporate marketing and PR team behind it. Gotta get real on this. It wasn't going to happen.

Related to that, your "I'd wait until 2020 for the 'right' game," is an odd mantra. We can't know the counter-factual, but I can promise you that, as you drift even further from the original's launch date, you aren't going to suddenly get MORE invested in it. I am pretty shocked we're getting anything. Wait until 2020 and the Kickstarter would probably do worse, and Sony probably wouldn't be marketing it, and some shell of a company would be developing it for a phone.

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Re: There Is No Reason For Negativity

Postby MiTT3NZ » Fri Jun 26, 2015 5:52 pm

reginalb wrote:Man, I'm sorry, but that yellow makes this hard to read. Glad it's not like that in the editor. I thought I'd give my thoughts on these obvious ideas.


Here's the number of fucks I give:



reginalb wrote:I don't necessarily disagree, but you have no idea what kind of cost restraints they faced. With no money and little time, your expectation here (and elsewhere) might be a touch unrealistic. I could be wrong, but you should consider that everything they had might have been produced under very considerable constraints.


I hope this is a joke. How many years has it been? And do you really think it takes a long time to make an environment like that with generic stock assets? Unrealistic would be if they had a week to do it. He's been planning this for a year minimum.

reginalb wrote:Agree 100%. Valve is a corporation with a couple billion in equity, and plenty of cash to spend. They would have done a great job, had a sweet demo, and some great marketing. Of course, they're a corporation with a couple billion in equity, so they wouldn't have to turn to kickstarter.


It was hypothetical. A world where Valve is on it's knees. Please, common sense is applicable everywhere in life, believe it or not.

reginalb wrote:You can't maintain momentum. Kickstarters spike, that's what they do. Pretty common with media. Jurrassic World's box office draw has been amazing, but its second weekend was like $100 million less than the first. The rabid fans contribute early, and there will be a spike right before it ends. You can't carry momentum all the way through. This, too, is an unrealistic expectation held by a fan. It would be awesome to see, but it's not a desire based on reality.


Trying to maintain momentum is different from it actually happening. Whether or not it would've happened is irrelevant, it's the small differences that would count. The extra $8k, $14k, $6k, it's still money in the bank.


reginalb wrote:Pretty unrealistic, again, to expect non-fans to contribute significant amounts of money for a game they're going to have to wait 2.5 years for, when they don't even have a viable way to play the first 2. And don't say Emulators/buy a Dreamcast, how many non-fans are going to do that? If you think the number is large, I have a great bridge to sell you.


Unrealistic? What!? Kickstarter isn't just about "Like this thing? Pre-order now and you'll help contribute to make this a reality!" People pledge for other reasons. Also, if they'd made a more appealing video, they could have definitely got non-fans excited for it.

The Shenmue series is unique in the way that the sequels aren't exactly self-contained, they're different chapters in an overall story. Not many sequels are like that, so many gamers wouldn't exactly think along those lines. And even if they did, it's been made quite clear that newcomers will be brought up to speed, be it via flashbacks or another digest movie.

You tellin me every AC fan's first game was the original? Or that anyone who's pre-ordered MGS V has played Metal Gear?


reginalb wrote:They've been on Polygon, Engadget and some other pretty mainstream news sites. I guess they could do a bunch of different interviews that result in the same information being on those sites, but I don't think it would help very much. And I don't think they're going to get a "Daily Show" invite any time soon.


Point. That was my assumptive shit chattin. I don't really look on sites like that, I just look on here, didn't notice any interviews with them, and took it that meant they hadn't done any.

reginalb wrote:Fair, and Yu seems to agree and has said as much. It was a mistake.


Massive oversight.*

reginalb wrote:I never expected this to be an issue. Hindsight is 20/20, but they did say right from the start it was going to use the Unreal engine. Big time savings there. People just didn't realize that, and people love a good conspiracy story. With hindsight, they might have done something different here, but I bet you weren't thinking that on the first night, either.


How could you not? It's been a much-debated topic amongst Shenmue fans since the idea of Kickstarter was mentioned. Hell, it's been talked about since it became apparent that Shenmue III wasn't going to happen for a long time. The last two were massively expensive, how the hell could a third be on the same level without a significant amount invested? It's not something people were thinking on the first night, it's something that we've all been discussing for literally years.

reginalb wrote:Finally a point I actually agree with you on. Their stretch goals were dumb at first, and are only a little better now. That said, I still don't think it makes a difference. People were going to donate or they weren't. With good marketing now, there will be another spike at the end, and this will be the most well funded video game to date through Kickstarter. Hard to say they were bumbling fools that didn't know what they were doing if they make more money than anyone else had through the medium.

Back to the original point, I don't think it will/would impact money raised, but I was scratching my head at the goals, nonetheless.


It would've made a huge difference. As I've said, Shenmue III has made as much as it has because it's Shenmue III. How many people in that first 24 hour rush actually looked through the KS page? Anything that Awesome Japan put up on that page was redundant at the time. From the second or third day onwards though, that's a completely different story.

reginalb wrote:Well, they added them, so why be bitter now?


The post is about criticisms of the campaign. If someone bangs their knee and says "ah, shit!" you don't turn round and say "What's the matter? It's happened. Why moan?"

reginalb wrote:I am not sure that he didn't, but he could communicate this a bit better, I agree. I mean, we're the kind-sorta investors, after all.


It ain't just about the fans, it's about anyone who looks at it. If I can't get a clear view of what a Kickstarter project is beyond "it's a product or game that looks like this and is similar to that", it ain't getting my money. With the exception of this one, of course.

reginalb wrote:ROI, the fans are the people that are going to pay. You could fork out TONS of money and lose it because if you aren't a fan, you aren't donating to the Kickstarter. Period. You're dreaming if you think otherwise


Sony are meant to be helping with advertising, SEGA will be receiving a slice of any sale-based profits based on the fact that it's their IP, other Kickstarters could get exposure on the Shenmue III campaign in exchange for cross-promotion (it happens a lot), etc. You seem to have missed this point completely somehow.

reginalb wrote:Not sure they have a PR team, I doubt they could afford it. Or they wouldn't have to go to Kickstarter. And Sony wasn't about to drop a ton of money before they saw there was real potential here. So now they've stepped in, and there's cleanup being done. I still think you're benefiting from hindsight a touch here.


Ain't about hindsight, it's about a lack of foresight. Have you not seen the massive amount of backlash "bigger games" have been getting from indie developers/gamers? They won't stop bitching about it.

And surely Awesome Japan are doubling as a PR team by default?


reginalb wrote:Now you want it both ways. You want a PR team, but you don't want corporate responses. What do you think you get from a PR team?


Um, times are changing pal. You not noticed? They aren't all wearing suits and adhering to rigid bureaucratic guidelines anymore.

reginalb wrote:Been a while since I've posted, but I'm back to combat what I see as EXTREMELY unrealistic expectations from what has been a loud, but TINY group for the last 14 years. Sega tried this shit, and it sold pretty well, but for a dying system. Then Microsoft put money in to it, and didn't get a good ROI. Now people think that it should be a AAA title 14 years later, with some demo made out of thin air, and a corporate marketing and PR team behind it. Gotta get real on this. It wasn't going to happen.


Never said anything about a AAA title. It should be focussed, but it should also be all or nothing. This "made out of thin air" demo should've been in the works a lot longer. It wasn't even a demo, merely a short concept, and Kickstarters such as that are historically a lot less successful. Let's not pretend Suzuki doesn't have money, and let's not pretend that this KS campaign was put forward on a whim a month or two ago. It's been in the pipeline for over a year. The concept looks like a rush job done in the space of a work week.

reginalb wrote:Related to that, your "I'd wait until 2020 for the 'right' game," is an odd mantra. We can't know the counter-factual, but I can promise you that, as you drift even further from the original's launch date, you aren't going to suddenly get MORE invested in it. I am pretty shocked we're getting anything. Wait until 2020 and the Kickstarter would probably do worse, and Sony probably wouldn't be marketing it, and some shell of a company would be developing it for a phone.


It's called pacing. Instead of paying overtime on a regular basis to get this rushed, done and dusted in time for release, they can take their time, save money, and create a better all-round product. If a job's gonna take me a fortnight to complete, but the client wants it done in one week, you can bet your arse they're gettin charged more than double for that shit.
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Re: There Is No Reason For Panic (Yet)

Postby Anonymous81 » Sat Jun 27, 2015 12:23 am

The new rewards did wonders tonight! We've passed 3.7 million finally.

Now we need to make sure all the new backers know about #30onthe3rd and hopefully enough of them will take part that it has some impact.

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